


With an Inverted Mark.

by Night-Mare (Aoife)



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Book: Goldenhand, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 09:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8838550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Night-Mare





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bendingwind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingwind/gifts).



The bells still shivered whenever Nick came with arms length of her, but Sam had done something to her bell-bandolier's charter marks and they no longer felt like they were going to start to ring themselves. Not in the way they had when she'd first brought Nick back across the Wall into the Old Kingdom. She'd quickly learnt to gauge Nick's frustration levels by the way her bells behaved though - if he was calm, then so were the bells. A highly frustrated Nick? Then the bells tried to ring, and in reality she had but two choices; to either defuse him, or else abandon the field to another. 

Sam generally had most luck at defusing the Ancelstierran, though Ferin demanded the majority of his attention at the moment. Well she didn't _demand_ it, but rather Sam was fascinated, and Sabriel aided and abetted his fascination; they were, all three of them holed up in the Abhorsen's island House, Sam's time - and her _sister's_ time - split between educating Chlorr's last offering, building Ferin a new foot, and learning all they could from her about the Northern tribes. For whilst the tribes had retreated from the site of the battle near the Greenwash Bridge, many of their Free Magic sorcerers still lived.

Lireal knew that her sister and brother-in-law were deeply concerned about the risks to some of the more vulnerable villages in the Northern borderlands. She couldn't begrudge Sam and Sabriel the time with the young woman, Ferin, who she was already sure her nephew wanted to make his wife - learning about the Free Magic techniques the Northern shamans wielded, and the dynamics of the individual tribes both before - and likely after the battle, given how many fallen they'd been able to identify. It did mean however that rather than getting to spend with her new family, she was hunting the remaining Free Magic creatures that had attempted to go to ground in the Northern reaches of the Kingdom, whilst Touchstone and Ellimere repaired charter stones Chlorr had manage to sunder.

She still wasn't entirely sure why she had Nick in tow, rather than having left him in Belisaere to learn from the Charter Mages who now made the restored Palace complex their home - or sent him back to her cousins in the Glacier (whom the Kingdom's collapse had left the foremost Charter Mages in the realm, albeit in some very specialised ways - when Lireal had described some of the charter weaves she had seen some of her cousins perform as a matter of course, Sabriel and Touchstone's eyes had lit up).

(She was lying to herself; she knew precisely why she didn't want Nick in the Glacier without her. She feared for him there twofold. That he'd find himself a permanent resident of the Library, caught in one of the Free Magic traps that littered it - or that one of the Clayr, one of her beautiful cousins would coax him into bed, stealing from her the promise of Nick's children. He was _hers_. And enough of her cousins frequented the New Palace, bringing messages and gossip from the Glacier that she couldn't leave him there, either.)

Nick for all his Ancelstierran softness, was a surprisingly good travel companion, though the funniest things evaded his comprehension. (She was trying very hard to forget the members of the Royal Guard that traveled with them. She was still coming to terms with her role as the Abhorsen-in-waiting and the deference that seemed to come with it. Being sister to the Queen, and bearing as strong a resemblance to her sister as she does meant that people were mistaking her for Sabriel - especially in the dark and when she was wearing an Abhorsen's surcoat and the bells. At least her sister had managed to teach them that an Abhorsen was to be addressed as just that, rather than by other titles; it was only the very youngest of the guardsmen that slipped.) Whilst there were things he had learned perforce under Hedge's tender care, he still had no wilderness sense - but was eager to learn. Very eager to learn. About _everything_.

The oldest, wildest marks, those closest still to the Free Magic they'd been formed from, came to him easiest. The more common marks, those that most who had been baptised with a Charter Mark knew, slipped and slid from his tongue, doing everything but what was meant. She'd shown him the marks that she'd learnt to use on snares from Sabriel - simple marks that most learnt. Marks to strength the line, to alert that it had tripped, to make sure that the prey it caught had an easy death. Nick trying to place the first had disintegrated the line entirely rather than reinforcing it; he'd also managed to extinguish a fire with the marks intended to light one. It was almost as if -.

Lirael wished the Disreputable Dog - Kibeth as she was trying to remember to call her - was with her. Kibeth wouldn't have told her what was the solution was, but her presence and the depth of the Charter she'd been able to reach with the Dog's collar would have helped her _think_. There was something she was missing. Something important. Whilst the hand Sam had fashioned for her contained and echo of what she'd been able to get from Kibbeth, it wasn't truly a substitute. And right now she wished she had that direct link to the Charter - she had the feeling that she was missing something obvious.

His sword play however was improving with leaps and bounds. Despite how late - comparatively speaking - he'd come to fighting for his life, rather than the "sport" sword play had devolved into in Ancelstiere, he was excelling at it, aided by his natural sportsmanship. He still only carried the sword as a last resort, but she was feeling more and more confident about his ability to survive long enough for someone to come to his aid, and he had a handful of marks (not particularly conventional marks admittedly, but still ones that would work in a pinch, with the most reliable results he'd managed to achieve - one of which was a mark usually used to clean pots!), that he could use if confronted by one of the Dead. Or at least that she was fairly sure that he could defend himself with, and that wouldn't blow up in his (or her!) face.

(It probably helped that he was bound and determined to carve himself out a space in the Old Kingdom. More, that he wanted to carve himself a space next to her. Which was flattering. It really was. And that was where she wanted him -at least she know where he was when he got into trouble then.)


End file.
